Has anyone done a MAJOR remodel?

[kellikans]

We have a 2 bedroom/1 bath house, a little over 1200 square feet. We have a 10 month old and a baby girl on the way. We are quickly outgrowing this house. We live in L.A., so very HCOL, especially in our area. It is sounding like it would make more financial sense to actually do a major remodel than it would be to sell and buy a new home. Ideally we would like to gut pretty much the entire house, add a garage on the front so that we can actually park in it (it's currently detached behind the house with a narrow driveway we can't fit a car on) and add a second story. We'd like to go to a 4/3 if possible, but would consider a 3/2/.5 if it saves on costs, and then just add a guest house in the backyard at a later time.

My question is, where on earth do we even start? Are there any good online resources for this sort of thing? What steps do we take? Help!

[namasteak]

I would upgrade to a 3/2 or 4/2 unless you need the guest house for rental income.

[Susie]

My first step would probably be to look around the neighborhood to see if anyone has done anything at all like what you are proposing to do. If so, ask who they worked with and how the experience was.

[dr.girlfriend]

First call your township / city / borough (whatever you fall under) and find out the zoning requirements for your exact neighborhood. That can make or break any big change like you're discussing. You might be limited by things like setbacks (how close to the boundaries or road you can build), nonpermeable coverage (e.g. how much of the lot can be covered with house/driveway/garage/patio etc.), how tall you can build, etc. I would also walk around your neighborhood and look at houses to see if they are comparable, look at listings, etc.

[thatgirl2478]

Are you sure you want to deal with the headache of a MAJOR renovation with a baby and another on the way?

I would do what Susie, and dr.girlfriend, suggest too. If you find that a) others have done what you want to do and b) it's OK with the city/township rules, then look for design/build companies that do this sort of work to get an estimate of the cost.

3 years ago we toyed with the idea of taking our 1200sq ft 3/2.5 ranch to a 4/3.5. We're not in a major metropolitan area, but we're still MCOL. We weren't planning to do a 2nd story because our foundation couldn't support it, just an addition that in retrospect would have made the floor plan funky. When we talked to our general contractor, he indicated that it would cost almost what we had paid for the original house to do that. It ended up to be less expensive and less of a headache to sell & buy what we needed.

Obviously, I don't know what the market is like by you. It may be that where you are it's less expensive to do what you want to do, but I doubt it considering you're looking at gutting & re-doing the whole first floor AND building a 2nd floor from nothing.

[InBetweenDays]

We did this 10 years ago. Bought a 1-story house (1 story w/ walkout basement), completely gutted it, and then went up a story. We kept the same footprint and foundation. We moved in when DD was 2.5 and DS was 3 weeks old. Below are two photos showing the only parts that were left standing (although we did salvage other wood to reuse in the build).

We had an architect we had worked with on an earlier project on a different house, so we brought him in early to discuss options, limitations, and budget. Then we interviewed builders and started the process. 



ETA: We obviously didn't live here during the construction. We bought this house, but kept our old house which was less than a mile away and lived there. So that is something to consider - do you have a place you can rent or stay during construction.

[mrsukyankee]

We did a full gut and added an extension in one house and a full gut an added a floor in another. In both instances, we first looked at what would be okay in our area (went on our local council's website) followed by having an architect come in, look at the work, draw it up and send it in for application to the council (she knew what was acceptable and not, so helped us with all of it).

I definitely would not live in a place during such a renovation so you do have to factor in the cost of rentals (we lived with my inlaws for the first renovation and my MIL lived with us while we did the second, which was a house owned by MIL and H). Also, it takes a LONG time. Expect whatever timeline you have will be at least 1/2 longer.

We're looking at potential renovation houses after we sell our two properties here and we're planning on renting for a year if we do end up purchasing such a house.

[trissie18]

We completely gutted our first house - the downstairs while living with ILs and then the upstairs while living in our house without kids. We added a third second story bedroom a few years later while living there with a 5-month-old and another on the way. We are now in the process of gutting and completely redesigning the inside of a house for my brother's family who is currently living with my parents. I agree with pps that living in the house while renovating/building an addition is horrible especially when you have kids and it always takes way longer than anticipated. The end result is worth it but man does the journey suck.

We hired a contractor for the downstairs renovation and another for the bedroom addition - both were found through personal recommendations.

We did the upstairs renovations and are doing my brother's house ourselves. My husband has tremendous knowledge, talent, and experience in many aspects of home renovation which saved us tons of money but definitely adds a lot of time to the project. 

[penguingrrl]

If you’re considering it my first stop would be an architect. They should be able to discuss whether what you want is feasible and be knowledgeable about local zoning ordinances and whether you will need variances and the like (and how easily they’re obtained).

We planned to buy my mom’s 1950s cape and use shed dormers to expand the upstairs from 2 beds and a half bath to 3 beds with a whole bath and also renovate the downstairs to create a larger kitchen and a few things. We weren’t planning to expand beyond the footprint, which meant just under 900 square feet per floor (expanding from roughly 1,100 SF to close to 1,800).

The architect gave us an estimate and two separate contractors also did (my mother is an interior designer, so we used colleagues of hers for all of this), and all said it was going to be upwards of $300K for that renovation assuming medium end finishes (not high end). That plus purchase price out it above our budget, so we changed our minds. But in your situation even a costly renovation of a home you already own may make a lot of sense.

We had figured out that living in the house was going to be impossible with the scope of work we were doing, and would have also budgeted for a rental during construction.

[hamster]

We're in a similar boat over here. We have a 3/1, 1375 sq. ft. We have a contractor who we know we would use and are friends with.
First step was to convert the garage to a master suite, laundry room, and bonus room. Then we would build a new garage, and do significant improvements to the existing house. In all it came in around 160k.
New plan is to do an addition with the master suite, laundry and bonus and a large patio extension. We are looking at more like 90k, though it wasnt an official bid and he feels like we can get that lower. We also need to drill a new well (10k) plus permits. We are county, which helps, and MCOL. The other renovations will have to be tabled for a long while. However the math seems to pencil out that an addition makes financial sense over moving.

We haven't completely decided as we need to see if we can get enough equity from a HELOC.

[humpforfree]

We did- while I was pregnant and had a newborn (and then pregnant again😂). We bought our <1000sf ranch with the intentions of adding on. We live in a HCOL area and there is no way we would have ever been able to afford this much land and the size house we wanted (it’s not giant) otherwise.

We basically added another 1500sf when you count the main floor and then a half finished basement (other half is garage). An additional bedroom, a full and 2 half baths. Expanded (and all new) kitchen, new floors throughout, new living/dining area and new walk in pantry and laundry rooms.

I am a commercial interior designer, so I did up our space and floor plans, my H’s dad is a bored, retired civil engineer, so he did structural drawings, and my H is an over achieving mechanical (like robotics) engineer, so he did our electrical and plumbing drawings. If you aren’t a family of weirdos in construction, I’d meet with an architect to discuss if what you want is possible and how it would be achieved and the pricing.
Again, since we are a construction family (my dad is also a residential carpenter/contractor), our family did most of the work.

I won’t lie- it was a pretty big nightmare (we did have a GC to do the foundation and framing and he went MIA after extending the timeline 6+ months from his original 3 month estimate, luckily we made out bc we hadn’t paid him)- my H was at work from 8-4 everyday, then immediately went to work on the house until 10-12 at night, plus all weekend. For a year and a half. I was basically solo with no breaks with our newborn/first baby and so overwhelmed. He missed the whole baby stage (which... he hates babies, so maybe that was best 🤣).

But in the end we love our house, it was designed to our exact style/needs/specs, and we saved a load of money. And again, we’d have never found/been able to afford this in our area otherwise.

[kellikans]

Thanks for the input, ladies!

There are a lot of tear-downs/rebuilds going on in my neighborhood right now (old L.A. neighborhood where most houses were built in the 30's and 40's). A lot of them are developers coming in, but I know of a few homes where the owners did the remodels. DH and I plan on trying to talk to some of them. Funny thing, someone I work with is actually planning on doing something very similar with her house and gave me the name of her architect, so we're going to try to meet with him. He actually designs a lot of the developer houses in my neighborhood that I *love* but can't afford ($2 million and up).

We're actually thinking, to save on costs, to convert the existing garage into an ADU, then stick with the footprint of the current house, maybe building out a tad to accommodate another bedroom/bathroom, instead of putting on a second story. Someone in the industry said it would be $250-300k to do this rather than the $500-600k to do a complete rebuild. So it's something we're going to explore.